schiet baan laan

I don’t go often to the Schietbaanlaan, but when I’m around, I like pass by it. This has everything to do with the poem by Rien Vroegindeweij on the side wall on the corner with Heemraadssingel. The poem always gives me a nice feeling, but I never felt the need to blog  about it. Until last week, when I walked past it again and I suddenly realized  that the name of the street appears entirely in the first line of the verse. This certainly can’t be a coincidence, or can it?

De zomer schiet met een baan van licht over de laan

Yet I  am unable to determine whether this is true with certainty. I simply can not find information about the verse. What I do find out is that the poem probably has been made following a 2004 decision of the Centrumraad (Center Council) to apply verses in the public space through the project Licht en Kleur, LEK,  (Light and Color), which is conducted by the Centrum Beeldende Kunst (Center for the Arts). “We choose to use lines of poetry, mostly of known Rotterdammers, to bring art to the streets (…)” I already blogged about another poem which in the context of this project was published in the public space. (http://wp.me/punIp-fN)

About Rien Vroegindeweij
Rien Vroegindeweij (Middelharnis, July 13, 1944) is a Dutch poet, dramatist and writer. He moved at age eighteen from Middelharnis to Rotterdam, where he plays an important role in the cultural life. He described the city and its cultural life in the newspapers Het Vrije Volk, Rotterdams Dagblad and NRC Handelsblad and in many magazines. (I always love to read his column in Rotterdam Punt Uit)
In 2006 he received the Erasmus Speld from the city of Rotterdam and in 2007 he won the prestigious Anna Blaman Prijs, a literature award of the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds. (Prince Bernhard Culture Fund)